Being a Customer Today – Exhausting and Confusing
Over recent years consumer relationships with the companies that serve them have evolved from simple telephone interactions to complex, multi-channel interactions which are carefully managed, measured by companies that want to get and keep those customers. A whole category of technology – Customer Relationship Management (CRM) grew up a decade ago to serve that need.
Customers today have dependencies on the internet and mobile devices as the modes for managing daily life from bill-paying to investing to instantaneous interactions with thousands of perfect strangers. These technologies have flipped a bit for every-day needs and expectations among consumers. The immediacy consumers have come to expect across the spectrum of their lives has caused companies they do business with to extend CRM interactions through multiple channels. Banks have turned on two-way transactional models for bill payment and credit card alerts using email or text messages and customer portals that allow users to define how they want to interact.
While consumers get what they want on the one hand – easier, faster ways to do business, they pay a price. They now have dozens of interactions from an array of service entities, each with a unique set of requirements for log on, setup, interaction options. The result is a dizzying array of user experiences across a broad range of media that can have the reverse effect of what was intended. The consumer’s life has become more confusing, more complicated, and more difficult to navigate. Read more…